“Follow, Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems” by Marilyn Singer

A companion to “Mirror, Mirror,” Marilyn Singer’s “Follow, Follow” illustrates how the same words can tell two sides of a story.

Of course there are two sides to every story — sometimes more. What author Marilyn Singer accomplishes here, much as Lynne Truss did in her celebrated “Eats Shoots and Leaves”, is to show how dramatically the very same story, told in the very same words, can change.

In “Follow, Follow,” as with its predecessor “Mirror, Mirror”, Singer contrasts the viewpoints on opposite pages or columns. The text is the same on each side, but reversed.

So the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes, as told by the vainglorious Emperor, begins, “Behold his glorious majesty: me. Who dares say he drained the treasury on nothing? Ha! This emperor has sublime taste in finery! Only a fool could fail to see.”

And the reversed tale of the onlooker changes that utterly: “Only a fool could fail to see. Sublime taste in finery? This emperor has — ha! — nothing on!”